SOUTH DAYTONA, Fla. (WFLA) – A mother accused of leaving her 5-year-old son inside a hot car while she shopped complained to police that “it was hot” inside a police cruiser.

South Daytona police said the temperature inside the car was 107 degrees.

A bystander said she saw the boy and heard his cries from the one window his mother left cracked open.

“He was hanging onto the steering wheel and just screaming. It broke my heart,” she said.

Police and firefighters rescued the boy and then waited for his mother. Colleen Walker, 30, told officers she spent 12 minutes shopping at the Dollar General, but security video showed her inside for 28 minutes.

Officers put Walker in one of their cars and took her to jail.

When police arrested her, she told officers to put on the air conditioning because it was “too hot.”

“She was complaining that the backseat of our patrol car was too hot on her way to the jail, and asked the officer to turn the AC up,” said Lt. Dan Dietrich.

Walker was charged with child neglect and put in jail on a $5,000 bond.